Upstairs
by lookingforthestars
Summary: Old habits are hard to break.


**Eight months later and I'm still writing fix-it fics. I think that's the definition of Not Over It and the only thing that makes me feel normal about it is knowing that so many of you are still hurting too. Thanks for holding out with me. :)**

 **I might – MIGHT – continue this into a two-shot but that is very much a maybe so don't quote me on it. But I'm just going to set it to complete for now.**

"Here."

Paige glanced up as he set the steaming cup of tea on her desk. She offered him a tired smile, touching the side lightly to test its temperature before she took a sip. "Thank you."

"Gross," Toby chimed in as he and Happy walked toward the door, his arm slung over her shoulders. "You know we live in the USA, right? We rebelled to get away from tea."

Paige and Walter rolled their eyes simultaneously before wishing the couple a good night. The door clanged shut behind them and suddenly the garage seemed almost oppressively quiet.

It didn't have to be like that. If Paige was content to work late…alone with him…it didn't have to be awkward. Friends did that. He and Happy had spent countless nights engrossed in projects and he'd never once considered it uncomfortable.

Walter took a seat back at his desk, setting his own cup next to his laptop and bringing up the two studies he'd been comparing. He was more or less capable of focusing on the task, distracted only occasionally by the sound of Paige drinking her tea or shuffling papers around. She'd been back—they'd all been back—for almost a month. Even after six times that long being apart, it should have been enough time to adjust to their new dynamic.

 _I don't want to rehash the past, Walter. I just want to go back to the way things were before._

He'd deemed that preferable to actively competing against her and the rest of his former team. They had been friends for longer than they were together, so he knew it wasn't impossible. But sometimes…

Walter shook the thought out of his head.

Paige yawned loudly, clapping her hand over her mouth, and when Walter checked the time, he realized nearly an hour had passed since Toby and Happy left. She'd looked tired then and he knew what she was working on wasn't time-sensitive enough to warrant pulling an all-nighter.

"Paige, you should get some rest," he muttered without looking up from his computer. Knowing that it would be beneficial for her mental focus tomorrow didn't make _watching_ her leave any more enjoyable.

She yawned again before conceding. "Fine. I guess this can wait until morning." He heard her drain the rest of her cup and push her laptop closed, followed shortly after by a creak that made his head snap up because, despite the garage's aged condition, there was only one spot that made that exact noise.

Paige had clearly come to the same realization because she froze seven steps from the ground floor. She turned to him, her face flooding red when their eyes locked.

The liaison mumbled an expletive under her breath, spinning around quickly and reversing course down the stairs. When she arrived back at her desk, she ran a hand through her hair, her cheeks still impossibly flushed. "Uh…sorry. I wasn't thinking. I guess I really do need some sleep, huh?"

Walter wasn't an expert in humor, but he could very much tell when Paige was forcing a joke to cover discomfort. He stood, trying to keep his sudden nerves from distorting his voice. It was simply muscle memory, a force of habit, just like the summer he'd broken his arm and found himself using his less dominant hand long after it was healed. "You're…clearly very tired. You can stay in the loft if you'd like. I'll sleep in the Airstream."

Paige shook her head, fumbling a bit as she shoved her phone into the side pocket of her bag. "I don't want to stay here," she snapped. "I'm going home."

The abrupt change in her tone confused him, briefly, before triggering a sudden burst of recognition.

"Of course you don't," Walter rebutted, sounding a great deal more bitter than he had intended. "Sorry, I forgot how much you hated every moment you spent here. I'll avoid making such an offensive offer in the future."

She narrowed her eyes, slinging the strap over her shoulder. "Screw you, Walter," she bit out as she stormed toward the door.

"Paige, wait." He intercepted her, placing one hand on the door but not completely blocking it because she once told him that was a thing Drew did when they argued and she'd hated it. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Don't," she said haltingly, shaking her head. "Don't act like every moment of our relationship was so great for you. If it was, you wouldn't have had one foot out the door."

" _I_ had one foot out the door? Which one of us is trying to leave right now?" Paige looked down and Walter instantly felt like an idiot for losing his temper. He'd worked so hard to bury his emotions and all of that work was in vain if he drove her and everyone else away again. "I t-thought you didn't want to rehash the past. I thought you wanted to be friends."

"That is what I want," Paige insisted, biting her lip. "But sometimes I'm here and...and it's hard to escape everything. Us. Okay?"

The words were surprising coming from her lips, even though he'd been experiencing that exact sensation for months. "I-I know. It's the same for me."

"No. No, that's crap," she argued, pointing her finger at him. "You moved on. That's what you told Toby. I heard you."

Walter swallowed. He hadn't been aware that she was listening then, but the corporate lobby they'd been standing in at the time wasn't exactly a fortress. "I knew…Toby would tell you. It seemed like the only way to get Scorpion back together."

She knew pretty early on that Florence hadn't been the real issue—especially not after the chemist moved 2000 miles away—but that didn't change the other aspects of their relationship that Paige found unsatisfactory. When he saw a glimmer of hope to repair his team, he'd renewed his resolve not to let his feelings jeopardize the greater good.

Paige stared at him for a long second. "So your solution was to lie to me again?"

"I…yes. I suppose." He couldn't determine if the glaze in her eyes was fury or sadness, but neither seemed conducive to her forgiving him. "Are you mad?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I feel right now." She dropped her bag on the floor, crossing her arms in front of her chest and slumping against the door. He didn't need a behaviorist to know that Paige was displeased, but she wasn't leaving, which was…confusing. "If you lied, then what's the truth?"

"Oh. Um, I don't know if this is what you're asking, but…" The genius cleared his throat. "Nothing has changed. For me. But I thought it would be too difficult for you to come back if you knew that."

"Damnit, Walter," Paige said on a heavy exhale. It was clear that she was upset with him for lying, but he refrained from asking whether she was angry about the dishonesty itself or that _specific_ lie.

He kicked himself for saying anything at all. He should have just let her leave. In the morning they could have swept it aside, pretended nothing had happened. They were good at that.

Now seven months of dedicatedly reassembling Scorpion was probably undone by one stupid slip, and the words hadn't even been particularly poetic.

"Are you going to leave?" His stomach plummeted at the thought, but the silence was starting to set him on edge and he'd deluded himself into thinking that maybe he could prepare for it if he knew the answer.

"Why didn't you tell me when I came back?" she asked, ignoring his question entirely.

"Would have you been open to hearing it?"

"Probably not." Paige sighed, letting her head rest on the door. "Is being friends hard for you?"

Walter shrugged. "It's better than being rivals."

"Wasn't really my question."

"I don't know what you want me to say." Of course it was hard. The past month had triggered so many little relapses—a glance across the room, a brief touch on the shoulder. It felt like the previous period of their friendship, before the wedding, except he was still in love with her and now he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that.

She crossed her ankles, pushing a loose section of hair behind her ear. "Walter, if I hated being here then it would be so easy to go home at night. I wish it was. Going up to your loft was a dumb mistake, but it happened for a reason. Somewhere deep down, it's where I wanted to be."

His mind was spinning, a little, with the memories of Paige in his personal space and the knowledge that he would give just about anything for her to be there again. "I don't actually sleep in the loft most nights," he confessed. "It feels strange now."

Paige nodded. "I keep trying to tell myself that we weren't good together. We weren't honest, we bored each other and—."

"You didn't bore me," he interrupted, frowning. "I've always found you incredibly interesting. I-It's just like…like when I talk about thermodynamics and you have a hard time understanding. I have a difficult time understanding your thoughts on music and art and…other things that you enjoy. And I don't like the feeling of not being able to understand things."

"You don't bore me, either. I know I already apologized for what I said, but…" She blew out a breath through her nose. "You want to know something funny? Ralph and I went out to dinner the other night and I looked at all the herbs on my plate and thought…god, Walter was right, this really is unnecessary."

Walter couldn't help but chuckle, and Paige did too, that small sound causing an ache in his chest.

"W-We did have problems. I don't think it's wise to ignore them," the genius said slowly, watching her face carefully to gauge her reaction to what he was about to say. "And I want to be friends. We know we're successful as friends, I can accept that if that's what you want, but maybe now that we understand our weaknesses, we could...d-do things differently."

She tilted her head slightly. "We're about to mess everything up, aren't we?"

"We don't have to."

"I want to." Paige reached out to slip her hands into his. "But you've _got_ to stop lying to me."

Walter nodded fervently. "Agreed. You may have to teach me when it's best to say nothing, though."

"There's a lot we could both stand to learn." She smiled softly. "I really miss you, Walter. I know you've been right here, but I just...I miss you."

"Reciprocated," he said, satisfied when her grin widened. "Please don't feel any pressure, but my offer still stands. If you'd like to stay."

As much as he'd enjoyed the…other…activities that took place up there, Walter was content to talk, to sleep next to her, whatever she wanted from him tonight.

Paige stepped forward, wrapping her fingers around his collar. "Yeah," she whispered. "Let's go."


End file.
